Overview

ACCT 355 will take you through the details of cost accumulation and product costing, as well as the measurement and identification of relevant costs for managerial decision making, planning, control, and performance measurement.

Lesson 1 serves as a foundation for the course, providing a general perspective of management accounting and how it relates to financial accounting. The first part of the lesson discusses management accounting in a global business environment and describes how the ever-changing business environment has affected the practice of management accounting and the accountant’s role in an organization. The second part of Lesson 1 looks at management accounting practices and terminology, and provides an overview of basic concepts in identifying and classifying costs.

Lessons 2 through 10 are organized according to three themes:

• Lessons 2 to 4 focus on cost accumulation and product costing for inventory valuation and income determination. This theme focuses mainly on assigning costs to products and services to separate costs incurred during a period between costs of goods sold and inventories.
• Lessons 5 to 7 discuss the measurement and identification of relevant costs for different types of managerial decisions.
• Lessons 8 to 10 concentrate on the processes involved in planning, control, and performance measurement. The emphasis is on the accounting process as a means of providing information to help managers control the activities for which they are responsible.

Outline

Evaluation

To receive credit for ACCT 355, you must complete three written assignments and a final examination. You must receive a minimum grade of 50 percent on the final examination, and an overall course grade of at least a “D” (50 percent).

To learn more about assignments and examinations, please refer to Athabasca University's online Calendar.

Your performance in ACCT 355 will be evaluated on the basis of the work conducted on assignments and on the results of the examination. Because the assignments and the examination have been designed to assess analytical skills, you will need to synthesize the concepts learned throughout the course.

Note: Students planning to transfer this course to a Professional Accounting designation (i.e., CMA, CGA, CA) are advised that they will be required to achieve a grade higher than the minimum passing grade. See the Professional Accounting Designation Web site for details.

Course Materials

Textbooks

Horngren, C. T., Foster, G., Datar, S. M., & Teall, H. D. (2004). Cost accounting: A managerial emphasis (3rd Canadian ed.). Toronto, ON: Pearson Education Canada Inc. ISBN 0-13-035580-1

Student solutions manual to accompany Cost accounting: A managerial emphasis (3rd Canadian ed.). Toronto, ON: Pearson Education Canada Inc. ISBN 0-13-039142-5

Other Materials

Students will access all other course materials online.

Software Requirements

To complete your assignments for this course, you will need a copy of Microsoft Excel. If you do not have a copy of Excel, you can purchase it from Course Materials.